The second part of a major report into doping in sport has concluded that more than 1,000 Russian athletes benefited from a state-sponsored doping program from 2011 to 2015.

Speaking from a hotel in the central London on Friday morning, Prof. Richard McLaren, a Canadian law professor and sports lawyer, told a news conference that the cover-up was an “institutional conspiracy” that “evolved… and operated on an unprecedented scale.”

He added that the process of state-sponsored doping “evolved and was refined at London 2012, the summer University Games at 2013, the Moscow IAAF World Championships in 2013 and of course Sochi 2014,” theGuardianreports.

Professor McLaren: Over 1,000 Russian athletes can be identified as having benefitted from manipulations to conceal positive doping tests

The first part of the independent report, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and published on July 18 2016, claimed Russian athletes routinely used drugs to enhance performance at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and that top sports officials oversaw an operation to hide the doping.

The report also said that a Moscow laboratory protected Russian athletes during the winter games, which led to renewed calls for Russia to be banned from the 2016 Rio Games. McLaren said tainted urine samples were swapped for clean ones at the laboratory and the Russian Ministry of Sport oversaw the manipulation through a state-directed system.

“An institutional conspiracy existed across summer and winter sports athletes who participated with Russian officials within the Ministry of Sport and its infrastructure… for the purposes of manipulating doping controls,” the opening paragraph of the second report reads. “The summer and winter sports athletes were not acting individually but within an organised infrastructure.”

Following the first report, Putin said in a statement that there was “no place for doping in sport” and that the officials named in the report would be suspended. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev also suspended Deputy Sports Minister Nagornykh, Reuters reported at the time.

The matchup is one of several games being live-streamed on Twitter for the first time this season. In partnership with Twitter, you can watch the game on SI.com or right here on Time.com.

The Kansas City Chiefs are 9-3, following a 29-28 win over the Atlanta Falcons last week. The Oakland Raiders are 10-2, after beating the Buffalo Bills last week, 29-28.

The game is scheduled to kick-off at 8:25 p.m. E.T. Watch it live below.

]]>raiders-chiefs-tnf-pre2College Football Legend Rashaan Salaam Has Been Found Dead in a Colorado Parkhttp://time.com/4593058/heisman-trophy-rashaan-salaam-found-dead-colorado-boulder/
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 02:19:15 +0000http://time.com/?p=4593058]]>

Heisman Trophy winner Rashaan Salaam was found dead Monday night in a Boulder park less than two miles from Folsom Field, where he carved his name into the University of Colorado record books as one of the greatest players in the program’s history.

The Boulder County coroner’s office was still investigating the cause of the death of the 42-year-old Salaam, who won the Heisman in 1994. The body of the one-time running back was found at Eben G. Fine Park in Boulder. Police say foul play was not suspected.

Salaam’s mother, Khalada, told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday that police said they suspect he killed himself. “They said they found a note and would share that with us when we get there,” Salaam’s mother said.

Salaam’s death stunned the Colorado football community which this year celebrated a revival with a 10-3 record, an appearance in the Pac-12 championship game and the Buffaloes’ first bowl bid in almost a decade.

“You talk about a young man who was smart, handsome, talented. He was very, very gifted. He was humble. He was a team guy,” Bill McCartney, who coached Salaam from 1992-94, told The Associated Press.

McCartney remembered Salaam as a natural leader.

“His personality was infectious. He just had a warmth about him, a genuineness about him that was really contagious,” McCartney said. “On the surface, he had everything. We thought he was a cut above, and he turned out to be.”

Former teammate Matt Russell, now the Denver Broncos director of player personnel, said Salaam was a “fiercely loyal friend,” the “ultimate teammate” and the very “definition of a winner.”

“He practiced hard, he played hard and he made our teams better,” Russell said. “… My heart goes out to Rashaan’s mother and his family. They have a lot to be proud of with the person that Rashaan was, the way he treated people and the friend he was to everyone he came across. He will be missed by so many.”

Salaam rushed for 2,055 yards and 24 touchdowns as a junior in 1994, leading the Buffaloes to an 11-1 record, a win over Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl and a No. 3 finish in the final polls. He won the Heisman in a runaway.

“I went to New York with him,” McCartney recalled. “I was thrilled for him. I’m pretty sure he’s the only Buff that ever got that award. When we recruited him we knew he was special … he just kept getting better.”

His work ethic was renowned. Former teammate Blake Anderson can’t forget how Salaam used to lift weights with the offensive linemen, because “that’s how strong he was, and how dedicated he was.”

“We were blessed with an incredible team and love for one another,” said Anderson, who was a receiver on the ’94 team that also included fellow receiver Michael Westbrook and quarterback Kordell Stewart. “It was just an awesome, awesome experience to have the magnitude of the players that we had on that team, not only for their abilities to play football, but their abilities to love and be great friends, which we all are currently today.

“We are all hurting tremendously today.”

Salaam was one of the nation’s most prized recruits coming out of eight-man football at La Jolla Country Day, a private school in San Diego. His father played freshman football at CU in 1963 before transferring to San Diego State to be closer to home.

“When we recruited him and got him to commit, it was huge,” McCartney said. “We knew that he was going to distinguish himself. He was very highly recruited. I can remember how happy we were. He lived up to all our expectations. He was a tough kid, he was rugged, he had great acceleration, great athleticism.”

The Chicago Bears made him a first-round draft pick in 1995, and he rushed for 1,074 yards and 10 touchdowns in winning NFC Rookie of the Year honors.

Injuries cut short his career. He only scored three rushing TDs in the next two years in Chicago and played his last NFL game with the Cleveland Browns in 1999. Salaam played for the Memphis Maniax of the defunct XFL and attempted one last comeback with the NFL before retiring.

He fell on hard times after that. In 2011 he auctioned his Heisman ring.

“I don’t understand that,” McCartney said. “You talk about a kid that on the surface had everything. He was a real handsome guy, he was intelligent, he was personable. You couldn’t really point at him and see any deficiencies.”

That’s all I could think to myself one recent November evening, while watching a New York Knicks-Portland Trailblazers game. I wasn’t sitting in a posh courtside seat at Madison Square Garden, with Anthony’s derriere obstructing my view — though I may as well have been. No, I was watching this game on a Samsung Gear VR virtual reality headset. The camera angle put me right at courtside, near the official scorer’s table — where Anthony was standing, waiting to check into the game at the next whistle. Which couldn’t come soon enough.

For the first time, an American pro sports league is broadcasting a regularly-scheduled series of live games in virtual reality throughout a season. The NBA is showing one VR game per week, usually on Tuesday nights, in partnership with NextVR, a company that broadcasts live events in virtual reality. To access the games, consumers need a Samsung VR headset, which costs $99.99, a compatible Samsung phone, and the NextVR app. (NextVR says its broadcasts will soon be available on other VR platforms like Daydream and Playstation). Fans also must subscribe to NBA League Pass, which costs $199 — a pretty penny for one VR game a week, but the package allows you to watch nearly every NBA game on your television, computer or mobile device. NextVR games are subject to blackout restrictions: for example, if you live in the New Orleans market or the Bay Area, you won’t be able to watch the Dec. 13 Warriors-Pelicans matchup in VR.

The latest VR headsets are incredible technological feats, but so far there’s precious little content specifically made for the embryonic platform. Some companies, like NextVR, are hoping that digitally placing fans in the best seats in the house at a pro sports game will help sell headsets and software, and attract advertisers to boot. So watching pro sports in VR could be the next big thing.

But we heard the same tune about 3D TV about six or seven years ago, and that fad has come and passed. Sports fans are habitual creatures. Give them a team to pull for, some fantasy players to track, a cold beer and nice HD reception, and most are content. The live sports viewing experience doesn’t need a desperate makeover. So why would fans be compelled to potentially buy a new phone and futuristic headgear and drop almost $200 bucks for a TV subscription, all for the privilege of seeing Carmelo Anthony’s ass?

VR stakeholders insist their innovation delivers more than 3D did. “We’re used to watching sports on that rectangle on the wall,” says Brad Allen, executive chairman of NextVR, which was founded in 2009 as a 3D company. “3D TV added some depth. But you’re still watching that rectangle on a wall.” Says David Cole, NextVR’s co-founder and CEO: “When we’re doing our job right, you forget you’re in VR. You become less distractible. It’s a new consumptive state.”

Cole’s not just cheerleading. I found myself way too invested in an early regular season game between two middling teams, though it was an entertaining show: New York’s 7’3″ phenom/freak-of-nature Kristaps Porzingis dropped 31 points in a 107-103 New York win. The headset tunes out external stimulation: the broadcast really places you courtside, providing close-up views of the players, refs, and fans. Porzingis’ drive down the lane, and punishing left-handed finish, is much more vivid in VR. At one point, I thought Knicks center Kyle O’Quinn was going to fall on me.

From the camera behind a basket, you can see a whole offensive play develop in front of you. It’s catnip for hoops nerds, and explains why some sports teams are turning to VR for training their players. The NextVR broadcast has its own announcers, who share directional commands you don’t typically hear on ESPN: look to your right to see a player set a screen, to your left to see a fight for a loose ball.

The big problem with the VR presentation, at this point, is the resolution. Players can appear blurry, which puts strain on your eyes, and your patience, over the course of an NBA game. NextVR promises the pixilation will improve, and to be fair, Samsung’s headsets are on the lower end of today’s consumer VR tech.

Neither the NBA nor NextVR are saying how many fans are watching the VR games. The numbers are surely modest at the outset. Either way, VR won’t go mainstream right away. But based on my experience, it has a future on the court.

Around 350 victims have reported child sexual abuse within United Kingdom soccer clubs, following a former player’s allegation that he was sexually assaulted as a young boy by a coach in the 1980s. Here’s everything you need to know about the ongoing scandal:

How did it start?On Nov. 17, The Guardian published a front page story in which Andy Woodward, a former lower league soccer player, broke his silence to allege that he was sexually abused by a soccer coach as a young boy.

Woodward, now 43, told the paper that from the ages of 11 to 15, he was abused by Barry Bennell, now 62, who worked for north east England’s Crewe Alexandra Football Club in the 1980s and 1990s. He was targeted by Bennell, whom Woodward said went for “the softer, weaker boys” and encouraged him to stay over at his house on weekends and summer holidays.

To ensure his victims did not out him, Bennell used violence and would threaten them with the future of their promising soccer careers, Woodward claims. In 1991 Bennell married Woodward’s older sister and the two became brothers-in-law. ““I had to attend that wedding, standing in the church when I really wanted to rip his throat out. It was torture,” Woodward told The Guardian.

Woodward’s career ended at the age of 29; he says he was unable to cope with his childhood trauma and suffered from depression and panic attacks. He decided to waive his anonymity last month to encourage other victims to come forward.

I just want to thank you ALL for your support and I now finally believe the WHOLE truth will come out and we can all have peace. THANK YOU

“Only now, at the age of 43, I feel I can actually live without that secret and that massive, horrible burden,” he said. “I want to get it out and give other people an opportunity to do the same. I want to give people strength.”

Has anyone else come forward?Yes. Other former soccer players have waived their right to lifelong anonymity to come forward with claims that they were sexually abused by coachers as children, including midfielder Steve Walters, 44, former England and Tottenham soccer player Paul Stewart, 52, and ex-Manchester City striker David White, 49.

As well as allegations against Bennell, subsequent allegations include former youth coach George Ormond (imprisoned in 2002 for offences against young soccer players in the area) and a former scout of Chelsea Football Club called Eddie Heath. On Nov. 29, the club released this statement regarding Heath: “Chelsea Football Club has retained an external law firm to carry out an investigation concerning an individual employed by the club in the 1970s, who is now deceased.”

How widespread could the abuse be?It’s not clear yet, but there could be hundreds of victims. A new, 24-hour hotline run by a U.K. child protection charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the wake of the allegations, says it has received more than 250 calls. On Dec. 1, the BBC revealed 350 victims have reported child sexual abuse within U.K. soccer clubs.

Within the first three days of the hotline launching, the NSPCC made more than 60 referrals to a range of agencies across the U.K. According to the BBC, this was more than three times as many referrals as in the first three days of the Jimmy Savile scandal, during which 17 referrals were made.

The NSPCC said Saville, a former BBC presenter, abused at least 500 victims during his lifetime, including some as young as two. A report published by the Metropolitan Police in 2013 recorded 214 criminal offences, including 34 rapes, against Savile’s name across the U.K. between 1955 and 2009.

When Woodward was asked during a television interview about whether the latest scandal could be ‘the Jimmy Saville [of] football,’ he replied: “It’s potentially worse than that. My heart goes out to all the ex-footballers and those footballers that haven’t made it.”

Who is investigating this?On Nov. 27, the Football Association (FA), the U.K.’s governing body of association soccer, announced it was carrying out an internal review. Individual clubs are also conducting inquiries. Fifteen police forces including Greater Manchester Police, Hampshire, Cheshire, Northumbria and the Metropolitan police have opened investigations. The Premier League said it was concerned by the allegations and urged those with information to come forward, the BBC reports.

Who is Barry Bennell and what will happen to him?Bennell is a former youth scout and junior soccer coach, known for talent spotting. As well as working with Crewe Alexandra, he ran summer holiday camps in the U.K. and U.S. He has already spent years in jail for sexual abuses against children.

In 1994, he was charged with sexually abusing a 13-year-old British boy while on a tour to Florida. According to the BBC, when the 13-year-old returned home, he told his parents Bennell had sexually abused him and Bennell consequently served three years in a U.S. prison. In 1998, he was sentenced to nine years in prison after admitting 23 specimen charges of sexual offences against six boys aged nine to 15. A further 22 allegations were left to lie on his file. He was jailed for another historic case involving a 12-year-old boy for two years in May 2015.

Since these new allegations against him have surfaced, Bennell has been charged with eight offences of sexual assault against a boy aged under 14, according to prosecutors on Nov. 29. He is scheduled to appear before South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on Dec. 14.

Just a few days before, on Nov. 25, Bennell was found unconscious and taken to a nearby hospital where he received treatment. He has since been discharged.

What has been the reaction?The soccer players have been praised for their bravery in waiving their anonymity, particularly by others in the sporting industry. Former England goalscoring legend Gary Lineker tweeted that his former teammate, Paul Stewart, was “extremely courageous in telling his appalling story.”

Wish my former Spurs teammate, Paul Stewart all the very best. Extremely courageous in telling his appalling story. pic.twitter.com/8Es7HaROzp

Although the public’s reaction has generally been extremely sympathetic, darts player Eric Bristow, a five-time world champion, sparked outrage for posting a series of insensitive tweets. “Might be a looney but if some football coach was touching me when i was a kid as i got older i would have went back and sorted that poof out,” one read. Another tweet said “Dart players tough guys footballers wimps”.

Bristow has subsequently been sacked from Sky News, where he has contributed to the channel’s darts coverage since the early ’90s. “He was a contributor to our darts coverage in the past but we will not be using him in the future,” a spokesperson from Sky told The Guardian.

(CHAPECO, Brazil) — Six players, a handful of support staff, and deep sorrow are all that remain of Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer club.

They will still try to play again. Because they know that’s what their 19 teammates who died Monday when a charter plane ripped into an Andean mountainside would want them to do.

“In the memory of those who died and to honor their families, we will rebuild this club from scratch so it is even stronger,” club director and local businessman Cecilio Hans said. “We had material assets and human assets. Now we’ve lost nearly all of our human assets.”

Other clubs in Brazil’s top league are offering to loan players to Chapecoense, with a proposal that the modest club in deep southern Brazil is guaranteed to stay in the top division for the next three years.

“The club will rebuild, I am sure,” said Walter Feldman, secretary general of the Brazilian Football Confederation. “Eight clubs have already called me to offer concrete, material solidarity. We are studying ways to best help.”

The crash occurred as the team was on its way to the opening game of the two-leg Copa Sudamericana final — the No. 2 tournament on the continent. Only three players survived, and all are recovering at a hospital in Colombia: defender Helio Zampier, commonly known as Neto, defender-midfielder Alan Ruschel and goalkeeper Jakson Follmann, whose right leg had to be amputated Tuesday.

At the time they expected to be home watching their team on TV, more than 22,000 Chapecoense fans were at the Arena Conda to cheer, cry, watch videos of tributes coming from all over the world and attend a Catholic Mass.

They celebrated the Copa Sudamericana title they hope to share with Atletico Nacional. They used a song created by Atletico fans: “May they hear/all over the continent/that we will never forget/the champions of Chapecoense.”

With the families of the victims on the center of the pitch, fans chanted the names of the players one by one and celebrated 5-year-old Carlos Miguel, the club’s mascot that many in the city feared to be in the crashed plane. Dressed like a Chapeco indian, Carlos waved to the crowd in tears as the stadium’s big screen showed messages like “heroes” and “forcachape” (be strong, Chape). The few staffers and players who didn’t travel circulated the pitch as fans cheered.

Chape, as the team is called locally, reached the top of South American soccer without any superstars — no high-profile players from Brazil’s celebrated national team. It was in Brazil’s fourth division just seven years ago, climbing into the first division by 2014. Now it starts the climb again, and this one is even steeper.

Goalkeeper Marcelo Boeck said he and several players had deals to leave the club new one next year. He said they’re reconsidering.

“We know this is a different moment, and we are part of it,” he said. “We hope we can help rebuild in the memory of our team.”

The rebuilding could start Dec. 11, the date scheduled for the final round of league matches in the top Brazilian league. Games have been called off this weekend for a period of mourning.

Chapecoense’s acting President Ivan Tozzo told reporters on Wednesday the club hopes to play that match against Atletico Mineiro using a primarily junior team.

After that match, there is uncertainty over Chapecoense’s future. If the team is awarded the Copa Sudamericana tittle —like its final opponent Atletico Nacional proposed — it would qualify for next year’s Copa Libertadores, the Champions League of South America which begins in February.

Chapecoense guaranteed its place in the Brazilian first division for next season, and it is also scheduled to defend its Catarina state title in the regional championship starting in January.

Data analyst Victor Hugo, one of the key assistants to coach Caio Junior, who died in the crash, said very little remains.

“We have a couple of doctors, two physiotherapists, two locker room staffers, one nurse, one masseur, one goalie coach and me,” he said, speaking at Arena Conda.

Hugo said the staff members and six players not selected for the big match in Colombia — some because of injury, others because of the coach’s decision — are trying to cope with the tragedy.

“That disappointment over not being chosen to be there was quickly replaced by that horrible mixture of grief, and with some relief just to be alive,” he said. “That will stick with us forever.”

Argentine midfielder Alejandro Martinuccio was injured and didn’t travel. He spent Tuesday answering concerned calls and comforting friends and family of the Chapecoense players.

“I am not religious, so this is even more difficult,” Martinuccio said. “I am so sorry that this beautiful story is going to end like this.”

Veteran goalkeeper Nivaldo was not selected so he could prepare for his 300th game with the club on Sunday against Atletico Mineiro in the last game of the Brazilian league season.

After the accident, the 42-year old goalkeeper said he would retire immediately, but now he wants to play in the last game to honor his fallen teammates.

“My teammates would want us to play that match,” a teary and emotional Nivaldo said. “I just don’t know how I could stand a full stadium with people calling the name of the players that died. We will have to try, I think. But that is going to be hard.”

One of the three surviving players was Jakson Follmann, the second-string goalkeeper behind starter Danilo, who died in the crash. Authorities in Colombia said they had to amputate Follmann’s right leg, and he remains in the hospital.

“I told Follmann I was going to stay here one more year to see him thrive,” Nivaldo said. “He said he was going to carry me on his shoulders after my 300th game. That is not going to happen.”

Businesses were closed across the grief-stricken Brazilian city of Chapecó on Tuesday as residents struggled to process the devastating tragedy that had befallen their beloved soccer team Chapecoense.

Almost every member of a team described as the “Cinderella story” of Brazilian soccer was killed when its chartered plane crashed in mountainous terrain near the Colombian city of Medellin late Monday local time, with the loss of 71 lives. The British Aerospace 146 jet was supposed to be carrying players to the game of their lives — the first leg of the finals of the Copa Sudamericana tournament — capping a fairytale rise to the top division of Brazilian soccer.

Instead, municipal officials in Chapecó — a city of 210,000 people in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina — have cancelled all holiday season activities and declared 30 days of mourning, according to Wall Street Journal.

“It’s like the whole city has died,” one senior official reportedly said.

The Arena Condá stadium — where the team were next scheduled to play on Dec. 6 — has become a focal point for large numbers of grieving fans, clad in green team jerseys. “We can only cry, and try to understand what’s happening,” the Journal quoted a local business owner as saying.

NELSON ALMEIDA—AFP/Getty Images Fans light candles in tribute to the players of Brazilian team Chapecoense Real killed in a plane crash in the Colombian mountains, at their football stadium in Chapeco, Santa Catarina, Brazil on November 29, 2016.

Brazil’s champion soccer team, Sao Paolo’s Palmeiras, has asked the Brazilian Football Confederation if its players can wear Chapecoense colors for the last match of the season, Associated Press reports. Other clubs reportedly said that they want to freely loan players to Chapecoense for the 2017 season.

Meanwhile, Brazil has declared three days of national mourning for victims of the crash.

President Michel Temer said Air Force planes would be deployed to help relatives of the victims to travel to Colombia and for the transfer of the bodies to Brazil, AP says.

During a presser after scoring 20 in a Dubs win over the Atlanta Hawks, Thompson ended his time with the media by telling reporters that he makes an extraordinarily good paper airplane, then making good on the claim by actually making one.

“You guys should get this on camera,” he said. “I make the best paper airplane on the West Coast.”

Thompson then threw his paper airplane at one of the cameras in the room. This isn’t the first time that the notoriously stone-faced baller has proved himself to be the unexpected life of the post-game party; Thompson also recently made headlines when he nonchalantly drank a beer during a press conference after the Warriors won against Toronto earlier this month.

There’s a problem with the National Hockey League’s newest team: Its name.

The Las Vegas Golden Knights will be the NHL’s 31st team. It’s also been the name of a U.S. Army parachute team based in Fort Bragg since the 1960s, according to the Fayetteville Observer.

The moniker caught the attention of Army officials after it was announced earlier in November, Alison Bettencourt, a spokeswoman for the Army Marketing and Research Group in Arlington, Va., first told the Observer. She added that the Army is “reviewing the situation and figuring out what the way ahead would be.”

The NHL team’s owner, billionaire businessman Bill Foley, originally wanted to call the franchise the Black Knights, according to the Observer. But due to “a number of factors” and a “concern from Army officials,” that name was not chosen. Foley, who is a graduate from the renowned military academy West Point, was aware that the parachute team uses the same name, notes the Observer.

“We understand that one of the Las Vegas team owners has Army connections, and will likely understand our interest in this announcement is meant to protect the proud history of the Army’s Golden Knights and their vital role in telling the Army story and connecting America with their Army,” Bettencourt said.